From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (urth) alga's digesteon
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 97 00:31:00 GMT


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

Reply:  Item #7729604 from URTH@LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#

Re: 7AN (oo, alphanumeric!) perhaps not being tied in to any
particular tale from 1k1AN.  Right, I won't be too disappointed if
this tangent doesn't play out.  But just for the record it seems
like one of the "lonely traveler lured by mysterious woman in the
ruins who turns out to be a ghoul" numbers, with maybe the setting in
the doomed City of Brass (the most extensive set of ruins I remember
from 1k1AN).

Re: the birdish critter at the end: yes, granted the symbols of
seasons thing (winter giving way to spring); yes, granted the first
ambiguous critter he sees, while suggestive of a bird is not (more
antelope); still I think it is neatly and nearly circular the way
that the last thing he sees (before getting squished) links back to
one of the first, with similar ambiguity which remains unresolved.
(In the first case the question was: is it animal or human?  The
answer is basically "both." In the last question: is it beastman or
human or angel, or beastman working for human like Cym wanted to do?)

Re: "Cutthroat," I've been saving this for a while, I don't know why.
More tangential than usual, I suppose.  Anywho, there might be some
connection to the Wolfe story "Redbeard" in STOREYS FROM THE OLD
HOTEL.  If nothing else, it is as close a tie-in as noting that
Severian is referred to at one point as looking like a cutthroat--a
few points defining a plain of Wolfe Country.

And here, alga, since I know you like these animule stories so much,
while you're at the hotel check into "Sonya, Crane Wessleman and Kitee"
 . . . (I'm trying to remember if there are any others, besides "Tracking
Song" and "Hero as Werwolf" and "Sonya" . . . maybe "Feather Tigers" in
DR. DEATH, but not really).

=mantis=